


This Be The Verse

by amatchforyourmadness



Series: in the nook of a cousin universe [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aromantic Azula, Aromantic Toph Beifong, Azula (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Azula (Avatar) Redemption, Azula (Avatar)-centric, Badass Katara (Avatar), Badass Mai (Avatar), Badass Sokka (Avatar), Badass Suki (Avatar), Badass Toph Beifong, Bisexual Sokka (Avatar), Bisexual Suki (Avatar), Bisexual Zuko (Avatar), F/F, F/M, Happy Azula (Avatar), Iroh (Avatar) is a Good Uncle, Lesbian Ty Lee (Avatar), M/M, Minor Aang/Katara, Minor Mai/Ty Lee (Avatar), Minor Mai/Zuko, Minor Sokka/Suki, Modern AU, Momo being Momo, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Past Mai/Zuko (Avatar), Protective Sokka (Avatar), Protective Zuko (Avatar), Sane Azula (Avatar), Suki & Zuko (Avatar) Friendship, Toph Beifong and Zuko are Siblings, Toph Being Awesome, Zuko (Avatar)-centric, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, background bakoda
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:13:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26002459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amatchforyourmadness/pseuds/amatchforyourmadness
Summary: She calls him at 2AM and doesn’t expect him to answer.The phone rings exactly three times before there’s the sound of ruffling of bedsheets and the soft groaned cursing of an unknown voice, urging a baby to come back to bed.Maybe she has the wrong number and this is stupid and of course he’d not keep the same number, she’s so stupid-“Azula?” Zuko’s gruff voice ask, worried and sleepy and confused and allowing her to take a deep relieved breath as her hands grip the paper in her hands in the dark of Father’s office.“She’s not dead, Zuzu.”(or the Modern AU where Azula runs away from her abusive father, Zuko is a good brother and Sokka is trying to cope with this sudden ‘Find Mom’ road trip his boyfriend and his boyfriend’s baby sister are getting into).
Relationships: Aang & Iroh (Avatar), Aang & Sokka (Avatar), Aang & Toph Beifong, Aang & Toph Beifong & Katara & Sokka & Suki & Zuko, Azula & Iroh (Avatar), Azula & Katara (Avatar), Azula & Mai (Avatar), Azula & Ozai & Zuko, Azula & Ozai (Avatar), Azula & Toph Beifong, Azula & Ty Lee (Avatar), Azula & Ursa (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Hakoda & Sokka (Avatar), Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Katara & Sokka (Avatar), Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Mai/Zuko (Avatar), Ozai & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka & Suki (Avatar), Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Suki & Ty Lee (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar), Toph Beifong & Iroh, Toph Beifong & Katara, Toph Beifong & Sokka, Toph Beifong & Zuko, Ursa & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: in the nook of a cousin universe [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1924432
Comments: 14
Kudos: 207





	1. Things That Happened After 3AM

**Author's Note:**

> this is solely MuffinLance's fault for getting me back in the Azula Deserved Better Train and HicSuntDracones for keeping me on it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Azula runs away from home, Zuko hugs his sister, Ty Lee and Mai are concerned for two different people and Sokka is reasonably suspicious.

In the dark of a deathly silent house, Azula counts her breaths, sat at the bottom of the stairs, with the sickening taste of fear stuck in her hard palate and her heart toeing the fine line between the proper amount of anxiety due to these situations and an outright heart attack. She picks her phone with shaking hands, hates them for shaking or merely for being hands, and texts the first contact in her messages for reassurance while she waits for another number’s reply.

 _Did I lose my mind?_ , she asks and _What am I doing?_

 _The best thing for yo_ u, Ty Lee replies barely a second later.

She wishes she could hate her for being right, but she can’t, even though Azula desperately wishes she was the one in the right and Ty Lee was merely speaking well-meaning nonsense, as she was so prone to do; not meaning to do any harm but bringing down a pink-tinted hammer to beliefs she thought were as good as stone only to gawk as they shattered like glass either way.

Azula thinks of her friend, in pastel pajamas, sat awake at her bed, squeezing Mai’s hand worriedly, refusing to sleep because her friend needs her and she has to block her phone so the darkness engulfs her again, safe and unsafe, like a blanket that doesn’t do much but reassure that she’s alone but also reminds her that she is alone.

The clock on the wall to the left reads 3:23AM and he said he would be here by 3AM. So he must have lied and she must be a fool, because she knows lies are all this family has, but she grips the ridiculous notion he cares enough to follow through his word as tightly as she grips the documents taken from the locked drawer of Father’s desk.

Under the clock there’s a family picture without much of a family in the picture. She remembers when there were four people in that picture ( _Mom and her kind smile, Azula and her innocence, Father’s face almost warm while his hands rested on Zuko’s shoulder_ ) and then it was taken down and another one was put up and then there were three ( _Father in the middle, Zuko to his left, Azula to her right, a distinct uneasiness to the whole thing_ ) and then that one was taken down and another one was put up, one who is still up and under the clock and in this one there are two ( _her and Father, smiling and eyes cold and sharp_ ). There is a brief moment where she wonders if, after this is all finished and done, this picture too won’t go down and the next that comes up will have the family down to one.

It’s a stupid decision and she knows it.

Still she made up her mind and now she remembers what her brother’s voice sounds like.

Her room is trashed, the office’s drawers are throughly disorganized and her bag is packed with everything she needs ( _essentials and things you’ll miss_ , he had said and it had been out of experience, because they both know he won’t let her come back to get anything after tonight) and she hugs it to her chest as she looks at the empty street for the headlights of a car, listens for the sound of a car or for anything similar to a car, and is rewarded eventually when a Honda Civic drives as slow as a slothturtle to a silent stop ahead of their house. She holds her breath.

There are things she needs to master: fear, anger, hope. She holds them down before either of those claws it’s way up to her throat, tells herself to be sensible and remembers little things that are more likely than her brother having parked across this nightmare of a house after a cry into the void from his bitch of a sister who never raised a finger to help. The wooden floor waxed into perfection, the picture perfectly hung, the four rooms in the top level very scarcely lived on, breakfast not much later from now when night bleeds into morning and her father sits across from her at the table and doesn’t glance up from his newspaper, her brother back in bed in the arms of whoever told him to come back to bed, the blanket of comfort made of darkness and lack of eyes around her shoulders.

He doesn’t owe her anything.

Zuko doesn’t owe her saving.

Her phone pings, she widens her eyes and fixes her gaze at the notification illuminating her phone’s screen.

_I’m here._

There’s a knot to her throat and relief in the bottom of her stomach and she remembers what her brother’s voice sounds like.

Azula moves forwards. She clings to her bag, opens the door, gives herself a moment to be inside this house one last time and runs across the street to her brother’s car. Zuko stands by the car: his hair is longer and he’s more meat in his bones, he can almost be considered healthy. Under the flickering lamplights, his half-illuminated face looks confused and sports the imprint of a pillow still. He didn’t change his clothes, he’s wearing what are clearly old ones settled for use on bed, with an unzipped hoodie over them and shoes, unlaced on his feet. He moves to extend his arm, either to take her bag or to wave at her, but it loops around her shoulder after a moment’s hesitance when she crashes into his chest and digs her sharp nails past his shirt to leave red half-moons against his skin.

He’s here.

She doesn’t understand why he’s clinging to her that tightly all of the sudden, or trying to manhandle her with worried hisses of ‘are you alright’ until she realizes that: a) she’s laughing like she’s losing her mind, b) she’s crying because she’s losing her mind and c) he’s holding her because her knees gave out on her somewhere along the laughing and the crying, but all is very much because she’s losing her mind.

Her face is pressed against his shoulder and his shirt grows damper and damper with her tears, his arms hold tighter and tighter as the laughing turns to sobbing and it’s probably the closest to a hug they have shared in eight years.

“Azula, are you okay?” He asks, like he cares.

She remembers his voice now, because he picked up the phone, because after four years of having his number saved in her phone she had finally called him and he had picked up the phone and greeted with ‘ _Azula?_ ’ instead of ‘ _hello?_ ’ as if he had her contact saved in his phone for the same four years as well.

Why didn’t he text her, if that was the case?

Why didn’t he call?

“Why did you come?”

“You called me.” He says, as if that’s self explanatory. As if a cry for help demanded an answer.

Maybe it should be, but that’s not how their family works.

The thing is: when she was 9, their mother disappeared in the dark of the night - a kiss on the forehead and loving words to Zuko and one peak through the crack of the door to Azula - and in the morning, grandfather was dead and mother was not there and life was lived under the scared uncertainty of not knowing where she was and whether she would come back. Zuko was the one to ask, over dinner, and Father raised an unimpressed brow before fixing him the words: ‘she’s gone”.

Was ‘gone’ the same as ‘dead’? For the longest she thought it must be, if she had left Zuko behind. Ursa would have left her in a heartbeat ( _would she?_ ), but she would have never have left her son behind, her too-soft kindhearted son that never learned how to please father or hold his own tongue, Mother would have never left him to suffer under Father’s abuse - the first time he hit him was merely two months later, backhanded him so hard he bust his lip open and blood rained upon the carpet with turtleducks embroidery; three years later, there were cops in front of their house and Zuzu was being carrying in an ambulance, unconscious, and the smell of burned flesh stuck to the house for all the weeks in which he didn’t return — Mother wouldn’t have left him to that.

Still, the sobs convulse her body and hurt her chest, as Azula backs off just enough so she can reach for the file crumpled in-between them blindly, through tears and the strange ache in the hollow under her ribs, and offers him the office brown paper bag.

He lets out a small question that she doesn’t bother to listen, shoving the file against his chest instead through a guttural sob that hurts her throat and rocks back to the balls of her feet, a hand on the street’s concrete to steady herself without his arms around her. Finally, there’s the rustling of paper, hesitant and unsure, before Zuko gasps in such a manner that it reminds her of when father punched him in the stomach five years ago when he confronted him on the living room as she taunted the boy with brown hair and blue eyes on the steps of their house.

She looks up, blinks furiously the tears away until she can make him out past the haze of them: Zuko is four steps ahead of her, eyes so wide that it’s pulling at the edges of his burn, a hand covering his mouth and the other gripping at the curb behind him.

In the space between them, the documents spread over the small patch of concrete along with photos from four months ago with their Mother’s face aged through years they did not share, smiling down at a young girl that’s not Azula, arm’s looped with arms that are not Ozai’s.

“She’s not dead.” He says, half in wonder and half horrified, like she has pulled another sadistic trick with the ducks he likes so much again and he feels the urge to shield her eyes from such a picture even though he knows she was the one to paint it.

“She’s not dead.” She repeats, and it’s only the second time the words leave her lips, instead of ricocheting inside her head like a pinball machine, and it’s something that makes her light-headed in the bad kind of way, the kind of way that means she’s burning through her adrenaline and that comes before a crash. “She’s out there, she’s not dead.”

“She’s not dead.” He repeats again, but she’s too busy picking the papers from the ground to tend to the way he wants to repeat the words like a fool ( _he’s the fool, he has always been the fool and Azula always knew better, always had to know better with the precedents he left behind_ ) tucks each photo and each printed report safely back into the paper bag, small scraps of clues and pieces of puzzles that she wants desperately to piece together, to understand, and maybe she would manage if only she wasn’t so tired, if her eyes weren’t so heavy and her shoulders weren’t sagging.

In the back of her mind, she is aware, there are memories of a childhood she doesn’t want to poke with a ten foot pole, at least not in the street in front of home where father can walk out at any minute - but she knows, half from the memories and half through basic biology classes, that the tiredness only comes because the adrenaline is not necessary. Azula doesn’t need her guard up or to watch her back or her mouth or her step with Zuko, and the absence of fear makes all that she has built under it fall to earth so frighteningly quick, like she’s not in control, but she needs to be.

This is what safety feels like, she thinks, and it’s terrifying.

She sits there with the knowledge of too many things she cannot grasp and listens to Zuko’s controlled breaths (the same patterns for morning meditations, the same one she had used in the stairs) and lets herself mimic his pattern until they’re both a little less likely to have a breakdown at the side of the road.

Eventually, after he gets a hold of himself again and tumbles to his feet, after he takes her bags and maneuvers her into the passenger’s seat ( _even puts her seatbelt on her like she’s 9 instead of 19_ ) and when he’s driving home, fingers holding onto the wheel tight enough his knuckles are white, she remembers to text Ty Lee.

 _He’s here_ , and, _I’m sorry I kept you up_ which is the closest to ‘thank you for caring’ she’ll stoop to.

It’s exhausting, this whole night has been. Azula lets out a breath. The the tears, the fear and the tension finally catches up to her, sagging against the window and doesn’t try to be in control enough to straighten She hears him call someone, voice soft and vulnerable, and says he has her.

“Make me some tea?” He asks, a small smile to his lips like it’s a joke, even though he looks just as wrecked as she is and struggling not to cry. If doesn’t groan as she realizes it’s probably Uncle, it’s only because she can’t muster the strength but she sure wants to. “Anything but jasmine.”

Azula closes her eyes and tries not to sigh at the thought of having to face yet another family member today.

Sleep comes frighteningly easy with Zuko’s voice in the background, like everything else.

* * *

Mai’s thin fingers squeeze her shoulder gently and Ty Lee lifts her face to her girlfriend, neutral expression worn at the edges by worry and concern and a well-manicured hand offering her a mug of hot cocoa. She smiles, bright and as excited as she can feel given the circumstances, and Mai offers her that small smile of hers that softens dark eyes into something less glass-like and more human-like.

She likes when Mai’s eyes look like this: less like coal and more like the darkest spots of the night sky; there’s more depth and mysteries to it when she’s not playing the perfectly behaved child role her parents expected of her.

Mai walks around the couch to sit by her, elegant black silk nightgown following her movements before it too rests by Ty Lee’s pink cotton one. Still graceful in her movements when she’s not even trying, she outstretches a pale arm in silent invitation for her to come closer and rest against her girlfriend’s side for support. Ty Lee takes it without having to think twice, mug of chocolate on the hand furthest from Mai’s fine clothes and her phone hanging limply on her other hand.

“Azula stopped answering.” She mutters against the smooth skin of Mai’s bare shoulder.

“Zuko too. He said he was arriving at the house any moment now.” Her girlfriend answers, showing her the text messages between Mai and her childhood-crush-sort-of-childhood-boyfriend-possibly-best-friend. “They’re probably putting her bags on the car and driving off before Ozai can be any more of a dick.”

That statement elicits one dramatic, long-suffering groan for two different but sorta connected reasons: the first being that she hates Ozai (even though she shouldn’t hate people because it _poisons the aura_ and is _bad for her skin_ and, all around, is _not a nice_ _feeling_ _to have_ and all her practices go very _against_ a hate so severe) and second being—

“How is Zuko going to handle this?” She says, and feels Mai struggle not to stiffen with the weight of the same question.

He’s been away from the Igarashi family house for four long years, in a slow recovery both of the damages inflicted to his body and to his, and still Ozai’s abuse gets to him from time to time, hinders his self worth and fills him with anxieties, ad he and Azula did not part on the best of terms to begin with, so how would her reintroduction to her life even affect this tentative balance he managed to achieve with his new live?

“For some unexplainable reason, he never stopped loving her.” Mai says, voice as bitter and resentful as it only ever gets when the subject is Azula and her own family. Ty Lee knows there’s a reason why she was the only one Azula reached out to in the dead of the night, no mention or question about Mai, whose motivation to maintain their friendship was always much more due to family ties than anything else. “I’m sure he’ll help her.”

“I know he will help her, but how will he handle what she’s going to do to him?” She says, fingers flexing and unflexing around her phone nervously. “If what she told me is real… Those photos of aunt Ursa…”

“If any of that is real, then he will have someone there having his back.” Her monotone voice cuts in once again, finger prodding gently at his sides. “As I have yours.”

The thought of the loudmouthed, snarky man probably waiting just as wide awake as the both of them for Zuko’s return makes her laugh slightly, though there’ still the very real possibility of he and Azula killing each other if forced to be in a room for more than two hours. She smiles then, up at the dark haired girl, leaning back so the amusement crinkling the side of her eyes can be shown, bringing the pink ceramic to her lips, the smell of hot chocolate sweet and warm to her nose as she whisper her ( _only mild_ ) faux concern hushedly over the rim.

“Are we sure she’s not going to stab him?”

It’s Mai’s turn to laugh, or at least to chuckle, eyes narrowing playfully at her.

“Are we sure _he_ ’s not going to stab her?”

Mai’s phone screen lit up first, with a text from Zuko, and then Ty Lee’s phone vibrated in her hand with a text from Azula. They check them both at the same time and heave sighs of different intensities.

“At least we know they’re both alright.” Mai offers with a shrug. “Or as alright as the both of them can be.”

Ty Lee tosses her phone to the table and slips her now-free hand on Mai’s colder one, interlocking their fingers and downs the whole mug of hot chocolate, hoping the sugar rush will lift her spirits.

It didn’t but it was still worth trying, she supposes, collapsing against her girlfriend’s body dramtaically.

“Come on.” She says, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “We should go to sleep.”

“I don’t think I’ll manage.” Ty Lee whines.

Mai huffs, amused.

“Then we should watch one of those ridiculous romantic comedy movies you like so much until you sob yourself to sleep.”

That sounds exactly like something she might need, really. A dumb movie that’s cute and uplifting and has a good ending that she can smile over when she falls asleep.

“Can we watch The Holiday again?”

Mai’s head tilts back and she visibly closes her eyes and does her best to hold back a sigh, but she does groan out a ‘ _Yes_ ’ and that is Mai for ‘ _I love you_ ’. So Ty Lee squeezes her hand back and kisses her, two for each cheek and one for the lips, which is Ty Lee for ‘ _I’m lucky to have you_ ’.

They walk off to bed, linked by the arms and leaned one against the other, smiling a little bit and locking the world and it’s messes out of their bedroom to be dealt with on a more appropriate hour.

* * *

There are things Sokka wishes for: Mom’s hugs, a dinner table set for four, for Katara to be innocent and carefree again, for Father’s eyes to be less weary with loss even years and Bato’s ring to his finger after, for a way to remember childhood without hurting, for a more peaceful world, for a couple of no-good bastards to drop dead, for an everlasting supply of meat.

There are other things, small things Sokka wishes for — small, manageable-things he doesn’t quite get, but damn it all to hell, he wants them still: expensive and tacky green bags, good weather at least two weeks of every summer, six fishing trips with dad per year, less spicy foods when is Zuko's turn to cook for the sake of his poor tongue, small demonstrations of love from Toph that won't leave bruises in his ribs afterwards, to win in Pai Sho against Piandao or Iroh just once, for Miss Ginger Snaps to not sit on freshly dried laundry _every single time_ because she's a tiny _asshole_.

Though, if he's being honest, mostly he just wishes his boyfriend would come back home with a little less weight to his shoulders than when he left.

Tonight, he doesn’t get that either. 

Sokka's been pacing the living room from one side to the other for the better part of the two hours Zuko has been gone from home (poorly put together clothes thrown in his haste, car key in hand and that worried-sick crazy look to his eyes, ‘ _my sister called_ ’, as if that explained anything) but he rushes to the window, pulling back the curtains when he hears the motor of his car; the familiar Honda Civic drives into their parking spot and stops.

Zuko hops off the car, looking to all the world as if he’s been through an emotional beating so thorough that a punch to the jaw would be seen as an welcomed distraction, and looks up to the living room’s window. He frowns slightly when he catches sight of him, lips twitching into a guilty line that weighs the corner of his mouth down, probably because he had told him to go back to bed ( _you have work in the morning_ and _I’m okay_ and _you don’t have to worry_ about me which all amounts to the unspoken _I’m a liar and stressed and I’m scared I’ll overwhelm you_ ) which Sokka pointedly ignored because that’s the compromise their relationship was built on: to care for each other even when they didn’t ask to be cared for.

Sokka smiles, raises a hand in greeting and after a moment he does the same, though his smile is more drained and anxious than Sokka’s calm and soft one. It doesn’t quite matter because either way the smile elicits the same old rush of reassuring relief that came in the heels of dad coming home safe from the front lines and Katara mostly unbruised after one of her ecological protests and picking up a Toph not slumped in silent hurt after visiting her parents and Suki crashing in his couch in the few weeks gap between one bout of volunteer work overseas and the other and hugging Aang tight when the shadows under his eyes faded into lighter tones and better nights of sleep, the sort of relief that came with the words _he’s safe_ and _he’s home_.

That is, until he remembers why he hadn’t been home to begin with.

They’re home and they’re safe and then his sister hops off the car and the memories hit him: Aang and him and Toph in one side and Azula and her cruel smile on the other, Zuko doing something incredibly stupid like facing his father alone in the panic room down in the basement, a solar eclipse on the skies because nothing could ever not be dramatic where they were concerned, _‘he already is disappointment enough, do you really need to help him dig his grave?’_ — and Sokka has half a mind to lock the door and not let her in.

He tries very ( _painfully, disturbingly_ ) hard to not think of the reasons he has for that door to stay locked, of how she had wreaked hell in whatever situation she was in, of Suki’s broken wrist and bleeding nose after being backed into a corner, how she had threatened to ruin Katara’s life, how Toph had shaken with anger under his fingers when he had pulled her back from punching the golden-eyed girl by the shoulder, how she had thrown Aang’s trauma right at his face with sadistic satisfaction, of how Sokka’s teeth had nearly cracked at the strength it had taken to lock his jaw against the poison she distilled especially for him, how she had stood bodily between people trying to save her brother and the man who had tried to kill him no less than three times, of the scar that spans from Zuko’s sternum to his stomach and that is her doing or of the nights he had held him tightly as he woke crying from nightmares, her name on his tongue, or with the fact he still loved her when she had done nothing to deserve it, or how the sad hopefulness looked on him when he spent months staring at his screen wishfully and waiting for her to call even when he knew she wouldn’t, how no one fourteen-year old girl should had the right to cause the damage she had, how no nineteen-year old girl should have be given the chance to outdo herself.

Azula Igarahsi is the kind of trouble he doesn’t feel like inviting inside his living room, much less into his guest room for however long she needs to get back on her psychopath-perfectly-manicured feet, the kind of trouble that sits as Fuckface Worst Father Ever does unspeakable things for a decade for a reason.

 _‘Baby, come inside’_ , he could say, _‘You already rescued her and that was more than she ever deserved from you, it’s okay to let her call one of her crazy friends for a place to stay. You don’t have to save her’_ , maybe he wouldn’t resent him too much if only he let his despair bleed through, _‘Please, just keep this girl out of my house’._

He doesn’t say any of it, though, he doesn’t know what he would do. Would he falter? Would he leave with her? Would he close the door on her face and stay? Would Sokka make him choose any of that? No.

Love sometimes was like stabbing oneself willingly at the leg so your lover wouldn’t bleed, but they were so used to holding their hands over ripped skin and torn flesh to stanch bleedings that it wouldn’t surprise him if neither could tell whose blood it was, dried in the creases of their palms.

The world’s worst sister looks significantly less confident and less prone to commit the sort of murder that won’t leave evidences behind as she gets out of the car and more like she just woke up from an exhaustion nap, her stance rigid and her eyes craving-for-thrust-but-knowing-better-weary and so similar to Zuko's years earlier, the version of him that stuck to the shadows in the halls of their high school’s halls and hid the left side of his face under his hair, that Sokka feels the fear be drowned by rage and the certainty that she’s manipulating them, manipulating _Zuko_.

Azula looks up at her brother, eyes clouded with the haze of sleep, frowns a little at his raised hand and vulnerable expression and follows his gaze to the window where Sokka stands. Her golden eyes are red and puffy, her cheek is creased by the seat belt, confused for one more moment as if she expected to see someone else, her mouth opens to ask Zuko something while she squints to make him out through the light of the living room only one moment before recognition dawns in her face and she freezes (by which he means she stiffens and pulls herself back like a badgerviper preparing to strike).

So she does remember him. 

He can’t decide either that’s good or not (it’s probably not very good, terrible, a big no-no in all aspects and locking the door should be his go to), but it is good that she’s the one to avert her horrified eyes. Gives him the time to walk to the door, freeze in front of it too instead of freezing in front of the window. They can’t see him through wood, so he can lose his mind and question his life choices with a little more privacy.

Gingery senses his uneasiness or at least finds his tense stillness as unnerving as it rightfully is, brushes her small body against his leg on a whim and purrs - another sign that people who think cats don’t care about their owners are shit bags and that adopting this tiny asshole might have been his third best life choice yet - which is as comforting as it sounds and earns her a scratch behind her ear and the soft whisper of ‘thanks, girl’.

It doesn’t exempt her from sitting on the clean laundry tho.

He takes one of those meditative breaths he learned from Zuko when he tried to force him into those daily yoga routines of his (could you please not call it that, which turned out that no, he couldn’t), clear his mind and all the good vibes talk Iroh was so prone on droning on and on unprompted and deliberately unlocks the door and opens it to extend his hand to take one of Azula ‘tried to ruin his life and relationship’ Igarashi’s bags from his boyfriend’s hands, offering him a gentle ‘hey’ that sounds vaguely like ‘ _this is crazy, but I trust-love you, so I'll let you rope me into this but not without mild complaining'_.

Or maybe it just sounds like a ‘hey’.

“I thought I told you not to worry.” Zuko greets him in his Zuko-y ways, tense and awkward and just waiting for a moment without pitying eyes to be as soft as the apologetic gaze he fixes him, refusing to let go of their maybe soon-to-be-murderer’s bag with a tug back and a stubborn set of his lips.

“I thought you knew I don’t listen to a word you say.” Sokka replies cheekily and, despite the very much fight response his sister elicits ( _she was still some steps away from the door, away from them, he could just—_ ) leans forward to steal a kiss, basking on this one moment of ease affection before it all went to shit, like a limited number of other moments before, when they had thought the sky was falling above their heads.

Sokka, however, is not above taking advantage of the haze of want and the bright-red-cheeked embarrassment to tug the bag from his hands, securing it on his own hold easily and safely away from warmer hands, with a smug smile. Zuko glared, Sokka smirked smugly.Which was a common greeting, between the two of them. What wasn’t common was the tactical coward’s retreat he had executed when his little sister's face appeared in the doorframe behind them along with the rest of her.

Gingery hisses at the girl, hair raised along her back, and Azula takes a couple startled steps back, glaring at the animal in that cutting edge way that means that precedes violence. Sokka almost dives to pick the poor cat up and away from whatever torture she had planned to inflict for the disrespect, but Zuko cuts him to it, standing right in front of their cat and letting out a 'tsk'.

“Missy.” He says, in that scolding tone of his which Gingery answers with a soft 'meow' and kitty eyes turning towards him to get back in his good graces (which she always manage much faster than Sokka can) and doesn't complain when Zuko picks her up and cradles her in his arms, like a big baby. He also pointedly ignored the glare Sokka shoots his way, but if the cat doesn't like her she's clearly evil and he should trust their child over the probably-killed-a-man woman. “Sorry.” He offers to Azula, ignores even further the small choking noise Sokka let's out. “She's protective of us when we're tense. She'll warm up to you eventually.”

“She didn't warm up to Jet.” Sokka mutters.

This, it turns out, Zuko can't ignore, turning around to glare at him.

“Jet tried to stab me.”

Sokka arches a brow at him.

“My point exactly.”

Zuko turns away from him but his eyes are downcast instead of looking up at his sister's face, fingers running through copper furr to chase away memories.

Sokka softens with guilt though the hope he understands why he's being careful is still there. Maybe he will be careful too.

At least Azula looks as uncomfortable as he is, but considerably less collected, unsure of her standing.

Almost vulnerable.

It doesn't fool him. He knows what she's capable of.

“I will have the guest room set up for her.” He says, and though he’s terrified he looks at Zuko, he’s cold and sharp and guarded but he also is checking up on him, ‘ _are you okay?_ ’ written in the cracks of ice. His boyfriend nods, short and curt and understanding. There’s _‘I do not trust you’_ in the same cracks when he shifts his gaze to Azula. “Welcome to my home.”

The ‘ _not yours_ ’ was left unspoken.

Zuko looked hurt then, disappointed, but he had looked worse when they had dragged him out of Ozai’s house. After Azula had tried to keep him in there. After she had missed his heart by mere inches.

Sokka makes his way through the hall, throws her bag on the maroon covers with more anger than an inanimate object warrants. The bed was already made, that has just been an excuse. One Zuko had let him get away with. What he does do is check for cutting objects in the guest room, takes down mirrors and glass framed pictures, twitches to go through her bags but ultimately doesn't and hopes he won't regret that, looks through the bathroom and keeps that meditative breathing going on as he throws anything remotely sharp in a plastic bag to be hidden away. Are the knives in the locked drawers? He doesn't remember. He won't go back to check now, but he will later.

They _can't trust her_ , but Zuko has wanted to have his sister back for so long. He will take that leap, he will trust her and he will let his guard down and Sokka almost lost him once.

His bleeding chest, his hand staining the walls red as he stumbles away, his sister thrown on her back behind him, tears running down his cheek, the wheezing breaths, the way his fingers gripped at Sokka's arm as if he was going to die at any moment, how Aang wouldn't drive fast enough, the knowledge that the only thing scarier than his bruising tight grip is when it begins to loosen in time with the shutting of his eyes.

Once was enough.

Zuko will trust her and let his guard down, so Sokka will not trust her.

He takes the plastic bag and moves to his own bedroom, tucks it under their bed like a crazy man and lays down, waiting for Zuko to come back so he will stop feeling guilty about leaving him alone in the first place.

What had she even said that was so important? She must have said something, by the way his eyes had widened even more and his breath got stuck on his throat and his voice broke. What did she say?

The living room light turns off and two pairs of feet make their way into the guest room.

They are loud, in Sokka's mind. Almost as loud as the questions, but he can wait for the answers. He listens to them, muffled conversation and undistinguishable words from this far away, but no sign of struggle. Zuko is still alright.

His lungs burn by the time one pair of footsteps leave the guest room and drift closer to him. Sokka hadn't been aware he was holding his breath.

The door creaks open, but Zuko doesn't bother turning on the lights. He lowers to the floor, lets go of Gingery and takes off his shoes. Sokka feels their cat climb the bed near his feet, walk past him and curl behind their pillows, above his head.

He feels his boyfriend climb up the bed to his left, hidden from his eyes by the darkness of the room and lay there in the edge, not daring to get closer.

The idiot, wanting to hide things he is more than willing to shoulder.

Sokka reaches for him — fingertips brushing over his chest and torso fleetingly, but not finding the dampness of blood or any injuries — and tugs him closer. Zuko follows without resistance, molds himself against Sokka's body and lets tension drain out of him and the exhaustion take over.

He waits patiently, chin resting at the top of his head, Zuko tucked in his arms and against his chest, and waits for his breath to even out until he feels like he’s calm enough to speak.

“My mother is alive.” He whispers against his chest, eventually.

Well, fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone so much for reading this first chapter! I hope you enjoyed it and that you consider maybe leaving a kuddo or a comment to keep a fellow writer motivated?
> 
> For more updates and other WIPs/fic updates, follow me on my Tumblr @amatchforyourmadness.
> 
> See you all next chapter!


	2. Threats of Murder Aplenty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tensions on the wake of Azula's arrival remain high; Zuko is trying to remain positive, though he will admit it, things are pretty sticky. Azula takes not of self care from the shower scene of Peter B Parker.

Zuko was, by nature and by nurture, an early riser.

He would wake on the time frame of 6 to 6:30AM, untangle himself from Sokka, stumble to the bathroom to take a morning shower and brush his teeth, have his morning meditation on the corner of his living room where sun rays would bathe him equally (and Missy would sprawl on his lap and purr the whole time), do his morning stretches, brew tea for himself and coffee for Sokka and have breakfast ready by the time his boyfriend finally waltzed into the living room, hastily tying his hair, grumpy and almost late for work, while Zuko was sat by the meditation spot again, pages of poetry spread through the ground as he munched angrily at a piece of toast.

Sokka was not a morning person of any sort, shape or kind. Absurdly, comically so. In the process of untangling himself from his body, 29 times out of 30, he would scrunch his face in disapproval, mutter something about the morning being evil, then rolled right to to the other side, hiding under blankets and burying himself under pillows until his inevitable rude awakening because he’s late again and his breakfast is already packed to go, because Zuko knows better than to think he will ever sit in the counter to eat it instead of stealing a kiss, grabbing his breakfast and shouting ‘You’re the best, I love you, I’ll marry you one of these days, see you at night’.

(The 1 out of 30 scenario was when one of them did not fill Missy’s bowl to the optimal quantity and she was ever so thoughtful as to come into their bedroom, climb onto Sokka’s chest and kindly give him a piece of her mind at 1AM through unholy meowing that had him knelt on the kitchen, filling her bowl and muttering about how passionately he hated her.

Big words for a man who was caught on tape baby carrying her with a stupid smile at his face, calling her ‘my pretty baby’ every time she meowed softly at him, kiss her in between her ears, another meow, ‘yeah, my pretty girl’.)

So, it was truly a statement to how unsettled and on edge his boyfriend truly was when Zuko woke at 6:21, heaved a tiny sigh, detangled himself from Sokka’s body and heard him grumble and get up while he walked into the bathroom for a shower.

It shouldn’t unsettle him as much as it does, having his boyfriend actually wake up early after all the pushing Zuko has put to get him to wake before the time he has to gargle orange juice because he doesn’t have any more time to actually brush his teeth.

It should be nice. Sokka enters the shower right after Zuko leaves the bathroom (not without tugging him close by the shirt first and pressing a quick kiss to his scared cheek). It should be. The house is always so quiet in the mornings, even if he appreciates his rare of early serenity as much as anyone else, but considering that he works from home more often than not, and home is usually empty if not for him and their cat, I makes for a lonely work routine and any spare Sokka (or any other social interaction he gets in the house or running to any junk food to buy a small portion of fries for no good reason to escape deadlines or even to cry at a coffee shop’s bathroom due to the responsibility and the crippling anxiety of age) is very welcome.

So it is, in theory, nice, that he’s making breakfast and Sokka is dressing for work. They can talk. Talking is fun. They can kiss. Kissing is even more fun. But, in practice, where Zuko has the hair of the back of his neck all rattled by the unnatural morning he leads and walks to the kitchen (not without making a stop by the guest room and creaking the door open to see his sister still asleep), it doesn’t feel nice. He makes Sokka whole meal waiting for the other shoe to drop with noticeable confusion.

He’s ashamed to admit it, but it took him half an hour to realize what exactly was so wrong about the situation they’re in until Sokka sits on the other side of the counter, in front of the plate of scrambled eggs with onions, spinach, gravy and meat (because no, he could not eat seal jerky every day for breakfast, the unhealthy buffoon), the coffee mug Toph had given him last Christmas as a gift (cerulean blue with the words ‘what are you looking at, jerk?’ written on the bottom) cradled between his hand, and casually asks:

“So, is Esther Coleman up yet?”

“ _Sokka_.” Zuko says, sharp as a whip, turning to glare at his unrepentant boyfriend, but being very careful to not let his exasperation drive him to burn eggs with furikake for two. “Could we please not compare my sister to The Orphan’s child psychopath?”

“Sure.” He says, his face sour as the candies Sokka likes to buy in packs, looking at him as if he feels a tad betrayed, as if he expected Zuko to band against his sister along with him, bringing his mug up to his lips. “You have any other child psychopaths you prefer?”

_For fuck’s sake._

“Aren’t things tense enough without this petty name-calling?” Zuko grumbles, turning his back on Sokka and opening the cupboards to pick up plates for him and Azula. “Koh, she’s been here for a day. What did she do to you?”

“Would you like me to go about it in alphabetic order or chronological? Hell, should we recall what she did to you? Or is it easier to ask what didn’t she do?”

“Sokka-” He tries, turning to him, breakfast be damned.

“You were in the hospital for weeks.” Sokka says, and he’s suddenly standing, waving his hands about and barely holding himself back from shouting. “Zuko, you could have died!”

“I know that.” Zuko roared, voice rising above Sokka’s for one moment that was so angry it rang like a 13 year old boy trying to be angry so he wouldn’t admit he was scared. The silence that rang in between them was long and heavy, with angered breaths and shifty eyes avoiding each other’s gaze less they were ready to admit that they were both right if only they also admitted to being both wrong. Fine, Zuko thinks, he can take the first step, he’s used to being wrong anyways, but he’ll do it with his eyes close. “Do you think Ozai was only abusive with me?” He whispers out in a breath that sounds like an exhausted crone, a haunting house through which wind passes and pulling a groan from the depth of his guts. “I wasn’t always a great person either, Sokka, but I had people on my side. Azula had no one.”

“No one?! What about Ty Lee and Mai?!”

“I’m not saying she was right, but I didn’t exactly take Uncle’s offer of help at the beginning either-”

“You know damn well you and her are not the same!”

“No, Sokka, I don’t! I really don’t!” His eyes drift to the hallway where he thinks he saw a shadow pass by and feared it was Azula, but it was just Missy and her orange fur striding through the halls as if she owns the place (in all fairness, she does, the darling tyrant). His nerves ease slightly, but her hands grab onto the marble balcony. “She never asked for help, ever in her life. And she called me. She called me for help. She’s my sister. I owe it to her to try and help.”

“You owe her nothing.” Sokka snarls.

“I _want_ to try and help.” He corrects his wording, sounding as firm as Sokka, just as unmovable but he doesn’t want to actually fight. He really doesn’t need to fight, but he is not kicking his sister off their house, no matter the fact that when she had hugged him late last night he half expected her to stab him between the shoulder blades or something equally worse. “Please, Sokka, I know I’m asking a whole fucking lot of you, but… Please, stand by me on this one? Please?”

Sokka’s face does that thing where it softens and hardens all in one moment, when his feelings grow too grand for him to bear so he pushes them down slightly to rule over the chaos with a clear head.

“She cried.” He confesses, in a horrified whisper no younger sibling’s tear should elicit. “Azula collapsed on my arms and cried like I haven’t seen her cry since she was five.” There it goes, the shocked numbness of the night before wearing out on the edges and making his gaze blurry as he looks into the nothingness at the right of his boyfriend’s face, shaking his head slightly. “And those pictures of mom…”

 _Ursa._ Agni be good, would he ever not be haunted by his mother? Every time he thought he had finally worked out through everything the ghost of his mother and the painful rose-tinted memories could have made him. He hides his face in his hands and only half wishes his hands could hide him from all the things that crept into this house in the cover of the night much like tears threaten to creep into his eyes.

Just one easy month with easy to handle things, is it asking much?

There’s a heavy sigh from the man by his side - who’s suddenly on his side and not n the other side of the counter - and Sokka’s calloused hands wrap around his wrists, pulling them from his face and guiding him to the back of the other’s back, lips press a gentle kiss to the top of his head, and, just like that, he’s being hugged and collapsing into his boyfriend’s shoulder.

“You have the worst family, I swear to La.” He mutters into his hair. The way his lips brush against small patches of skin, always so near his temples, feel like another kiss.

Zuko presses his face against his shoulders a little more, as if his face is a pancake.

“Sorry. Didn’t pick it.”

Sokka’s amused breath is huffed out near his ear, and he mutters something akin to ‘not a real excuse’ before going thoughtful quiet. Zuko doesn’t feel like speaking and it always takes his boyfriend some time to get his emotions in order, so he merely relishes the morning hug as if the morning wasn’t as chaotic as a car accident in the middle of the highway.

“I’m going to stand by you no matter what, you know that.”

His heart warmed considerably, the way his chest did when he drank hot oolong tea.

“I know.” Zuko hides a thankful smile against his shirt, but he does lift his face to press a kiss to his cheek. “Thank you. I love you.”

“I love you too.” He says and kisses his forehead in turn, his warmth breath and the tenderness of the gesture almost enough to make the slight stubble scratching him lightly unimportant. Sokka kisses his hairline one last time, then steps back to pick his bag and fish his car key from the bowl. “But if she kills you that will be entirely your fault.”

“She’s not going to kill me, Sokka.” Zuko hisses, exasperated.

“Are you sure?” Sokka asks, narrowing his yes over Zuko’s shoulder to the general direction of their guest room. Zuko did the one reasonable thing to do: he glared back at him, pushed him through the door then promptly closed it behind his back. “I called Katara to check if you’re alive later.” He added, like an afterthought, from the other side, knowing better than to try to put up a fight after one too many times being kicked out of home and into work.

Which, for future reference, not the way announcing such a visit under the current circumstances should ever be announced.

“You _what_?” Zuko asked,sounding just as strangled as the statement rightfully deserved. “Sokka, she hates Azula!”

“Which is why I trust her to give me a fair assessment of what is going on, because, I adore you, but we both know you won’t tell me shit.”

“She’s just as biased as I am! If you wanted a neutral party you’d have called-”

“No one! Everyone hates her!”

“The point still stands: Katara is going to _murder_ Azula!”

“It’s better than Azula murdering you!” He argues, and Zuko just knows he has the face of someone who thinks they’re being reasonable, and he could open the door solely to punch it. "Plus, Katara is a doctor. She's not going to kill Azula, just… Severally incapacitate her something.” 

“ _One_ more sentence and you’re sleeping on the couch.”

A second of silence is too short of a time for Zuko but too long for Sokka, apparently because he tries:

“I love you…?”

Zuko promptly hit his forehead against the door, internally asking Agni why did he hate him so much. Zuko was a relatively good person, he did relatively nice things, he had a fucked up family but he didn’t of which scrotum he would be shot out of.

“I love you too.” The words came muffled, both because he had his face buried in his hands and his hands pressed against the door, but Sokka heard him, of that he was sure. “Now go to work.”

He knocked twice against the door before leaving, and Zuko was left with a possibly homicidal sister, an unfinished poetry book, a cat that hated strangers and the fact he couldn’t grasp how Sokka made knocking on doors sound affectionate.

* * *

Azula read once somewhere that sociopaths slept with too many pillows on their beds (or was it touch starved people that did that?) and that insecure people would wrap themselves fully in blankets to sleep, therefore she took to only sleeping with two pillows and the thinnest silk blanket money could buy less she wanted to encourage such things on her person and laid on her side, posture relaxed, forcing herself to take meditative breaths that guided her into sleep every night.

The night in her brother’s guest bedroom throws all such protocols through the window.

(She feels entirely comfortable blaming Zuko for all of it. He was the one to hug her and hugging her started this mess, so it was clearly his fault.  
She was surrounded by well-meaning idiots that were walking liabilities to her person with their concern and their gentle hands and their adamant will to take care of her though she scarcely had given them much reason to.)

Sleeping in the guest room is awfully easy. She was exhausted, though she had not much exercised that day and took quite the long car-nap on her way here, but then her brother was carrying her bags inside his house, defusing tension with his boyfriend (whom she totally threatened more than once and won't that just make for a lovely dinner conversation?), cradling a cat in his arms and smiling at her still (would he just stop? He keeps talking, and being kind, and acting as if nothing really happened, nothing like a knife to his chest and three years away from home and she feels more and more tired by the minute) then guiding her into the guest room he had take the time of setting up and making sure she was comfortable and settled in for the night.

The bedroom he and the boy shared wasn’t much far away from hers. She could hear him sob when the soft crying began. Azula turned to the side, her back to the door and was met with feather pillows.  
Waking up in his guest room was equally terrible; there were four pillows in the bed for some reason and she slept with two of those under her bed and clinging to the other two as if they were two halves of a person she could bring together to actually hold. Disgraceful, really. She tried kicking them out of bed but she was trapped with them because she wrapped herself in the most fuzzy blanket she has ever had the displeasure to touch.

She groans in mild rage and kicks them all to the floor.  
What is even up with Zuko’s guest room and being this ridiculously comfortable? Is he housing children in here?

Whatever. She probably overslept too, in this ridiculous room and in this ridiculous house but there’s no father here to keep on enforcing strict arbitrary time frames, so Azula stands, shoves her hands through her bags for the small nécessaire then walks to the bathroom because she feels like walking to the Koh-damned bathroom.

Essentials and things she will miss included her skincare routine because it did not take a genius to figure out that not only she would not be allowed back to pick her products as she also would not be getting any allowances anytime soon to replace them. Azula was already in for a terrible no-good couple of… Days? Weeks? Months? Years?

Does it even matter?

It’s going to be rough either way but she’ll be damned if she develops bags under her eyes over it. She’ll cross this hell well-composed and with her skin moisturized, thank you very much, Father and not-dead-Mother and Agni too, who must be having a little too much fun at the absurdities that come out of this family.

Azula knows for sure that touch starved people take warm baths, because the warmth could be assimilated as touch by the brain, and given that the warmth was plenty and enveloped a person, that in turn could trick the brain into feeling much like it would if the person in question was given a hug or something equally as pathetic. So as another baseline rule, back home she would only take ice cold showers to keep her mind lucid and to not cave to her own brain’s shortcomings and yearning for affection.

Right now, she glares into the shower of the guest bathroom and turns the faucet of hot water calculatingly, another hand placed under the flow of water, until she achieves the perfect warm temperature. Her clothes go, kicked to the laundry basket her brother has in his guest room (why does it look so much like it's lived in? The guest rooms back in their family's house were vast and luxurious but also cold and notably empty. Zuko's just look like they are there so he can ask people to stay the night after they talk nonsense for too long after dinner and it becomes late or drank one too many glasses of wine to be safely sent driving back) and takes a stand under the pouring water.

It’s not anything like a true hug ( _Azula_ , Ty Lee’s warm brown eyes, _are you okay?_ ) but it feels some type of way that is not entirely unpleasant.

Azula's stops for a moment, truly unsure, and goes through her brain for any other scraps of useless information or small articles she breezed over that could be applied to the situation she's in; all that comes up are movies.

She sits on the floor, though that sounds dubious, because that's what people whose lives have just been turned upside down do in movies, brings her knees to her chest and wraps her own arms around herself, as the warm water pours over her. It's not fully horrible though not fully effective either: the heat engulfs her as a whole and melts parts of her she had not been still existed after these many years, wears down her walls until they fall altogether and her shoulders shake with quiet sobs.  
But it’s still not a hug.

 _Stupid_ , she thinks sniffling silently some twenty minutes later, standing up shakily to close the water stream off. Steam hung above her, heavy and warm in the air, _Stupid. Stop being a baby about it, act your age._

She collects herself, all the pieces that fell off and spread through the floor when she dared to loosen herself slightly, powers herself with healthy amounts of anger to keep pushing through it all.

Azula was above small moments of pathetic failure and this was just dear old Zuzu brushing off on her.

She combs her hair back into her seamless topknot, telling herself all the while she will persevere through yet this one more situation as always and ignoring the ghosts on the edges of the mirror.  
Her phone remains uncharged and turned off on the bedside table when she leaves the room and walks unsurely towards where she remembers was the living room.

“Zuko?” She calls out to the peacefully quiet house.

She was expecting for him to call back, but instead she gets the same orange cat from yesterday jumping on the spot a few feet ahead of her and hissing like it means to claw her eyes out. Azula backs off immediately and starts putting together excuses for the probable casualty of killing Zuko’s cat if does go for her neck.

“ _Missy_!” Her brother says, another click of his tongue, like the one from yesterday but much more aggravated and here he comes, dressed casually in maroon clothes, scooping the cat into his lap where she becomes a tiny pile of fur and not-homicidal intent. Ha, good try. If that didn’t work for Azula, it’s not going to work for a cat. “You’re terrible.” He mutters fondly to the cat and starts scratching the back of her ear as if it did not very clearly tried to kill her ten second ago, before turning his smile to her. “Good morning, Azula. I… Uh, I had made breakfast, but we’re closer to lunch time now, so… Your breakfast is in the fridge, if you want, I ate mine. But if you want lunch, I’m making lunch.”

She blinks a couple of times. Many things make her want to slam her head against a table, but the one that calls her attention he most is:

“Lunch?” She asks, tilting her head every so slightly to show her confusion.

“What time, exactly, is it?”

“About 12:45, I think.”

She overslept six hours and fifteen minutes.

Agni, Azula’s truly out of it.

“Lunch will do.” She says, shifting her feet unsurely, and Zuko nods, almost as unsure before mustering another smile at her.

“Good. What would you like to eat?”

“Anything.” Azula answers, in a shrug, because, really, she’s not about to be picky over food when she’s on his house out of his favor. “Where... Where is…” She gestures around the house vaguely, and Zuko frowns, looking around as if trying to figure out what she’s referring to. Fuck, why can’t she remember his name? She threatened him she should know. Her head tilts back in exasperation, her hand flopping towards the hallway that leads to the bedrooms. “The boy?”

Silence does not eat away at her nerves, as it is known to do with others. Instead, it just falls to ankles-high, like snow or mud, uncomfortable and non-consequential. She brings her face down again, gaze fixed at her brother, demanding and unimpressed. Zuko looks back at her, face scrunched is disbelief and perplexity.

“Do you mean… My boyfriend?” He asks, sounding like he’s expecting her to be joking. His own brow arches to match hers and the murder cat is glaring at her now Azula disrupted her owner’s attention and halted his petting. “Sokka?”

Why is he asking ass if she’s supposed to know what the man who alienated Zuko from their family is called? It’s his boyfriend and he seems just as fond of her as she is of him.

“Is that his name?” She asks, disdain heavy on her voice, to which Zuko shifts defensively, and narrows his eyes with something that’s not sadness at all.

“Yes.” He says, chest inflated as if he was waiting for her to hurl insults at the boy.

Normally, she would, but it doesn’t seem very smart to antagonize one of the owners of the house by speaking badly of the other, even if the other in question deserves every insult o his person she could string up.

“Then where is Sokka?” She asks, and knows she would be thinking ‘shove it’ if she was any other person at the sight of startled surprise and the sagging of Zuko’s posture.

“He’s off at work.” He drawls the words out, face still turned to slightly away from her like he expects entirely for a biting comment.  
Just because the ma- the boy deserves to be insulted, doesn’t mean she’ll do so when Zuko expects. She doesn’t exist to indulge his whims.

“Don’t you work?”

“I am a writer.” He says and that… That reaction is new. He looks almost disappointment - no, not disappointment- sad, by the answer she gives him. He tries to smile again, but this time her lips twitch feebly but nothing comes, not when his eyes look heavy like a storm cloud. “I work from home.”

“Oh.” She says, keeping her face cool and devoid of reaction, her eyes always purposefully away from the bookshelves by the TV where familiar book covers stand neatly side-by-side. “What do you write? Dreary romances?”

He snorts, bitter and resigned and shakes his head, looking off to the window with the view to his front door. 

“Come on.” We’ll have visit to lunch, so I should get started. He says, his eyes avoiding her entirely, down to the floor, then he bows and lets the murder cat lose with a gentle nudge and the a chiding. “Behave.”

Fine then, Azula thinks but only slightly bothered, They’ll talk about hid poetry another day.

* * *

When she wakes the sky is cerulean blue and cloudless, birds are chirping birdsong, the sun is shining, the weather is nice and Aang's arms are around her waist, her ear to his chest, listening to his heartbeat with a pleased sigh.

It would have been a good day, could have been, but she didn't get nice things.

Katara turns to a side, stretching herself lazily and turning to the other side to reach for her phone, Aang following right behind her, not budging his hold around her waist and hiding his face against the dark brown mess of her hair, nuzzling into it gently. She smiles to herself, sneaking a glance to sleepy Aang over her shoulder fondly before she looks at her phone.

It all goes downhill from here.

There are up to thirty texts from her brother with different degrees of paranoia each, a plea to spend her lunch break with Zuko so she can tell him he’s not dead and the knowledge that Azula Igarashi is apparently staying at his house now.

“Shit.” She says.

“What?” Aang asks sleepily, muffled against her shoulder. She nudges his side, offers her phone for him to read the texts. He does so, eyes narrowed in sleep slowly and gradually growing more aware, his brows climbing up and up his forehead until they nearly touch his arrow. “Shit.”

Katara groans, hiding her face on the pillow.

“I know.”

So here she is: in the small gap of hours between one shift and the next, that she could very well be spending maybe trying to see if Toph is to tag along and have lunch with her, walking towards the beige-colored house her brother and Zuko have bought about two years ago and has ever since been the coziest and most welcoming dance hall she has ever seen, even though she loves her own house dearly.

Dance hall, that is, because since they moved in together and bought their cat they have taken dancing around the fact they both act like a wedded couple and the very obvious question that involves a ring and kneeling that they’re taking too long to pop out.

It’s going to take even longer with their friendly neighborhood sociopath in the guest room, as if Katara needed any more reason to hate her.

She takes a deep breath and does as Aang told her to: think nice thoughts and you’ll have nice experiences. She’s the hopeful one in the family, isn’t she? She can manage nice thoughts, even if, she’ll admit it, Katara finds her moral compass very heavily leaning towards the act of murder. But murder is illegal and Katara is not Toph, so, sure, nice thoughts.

Nice thought of the day: even though there’s a sociopath in there that she is legally, morally and Zuko-lly not allowed to murder, this is still Zuko and Sokka’s house, so she gets to pet Gingery and she gets to eat free food and the free food just so happens to be Zuko’s, who apparently has a personal book of recipes to every single person he knows because Tui forbid the same person eats the same plate when they come over.

Not that she was complaining he took over cooking, but the guy needed out-of-the-house hobbies.

Katara has barely put a foot on their driveway and the door opens, Zuko smiling with all his teeth and all his nerves and the 'please let my sister leave another day, officer' look about him that would be very convincing and sway her into sparing his sister, if she didn't see his sister inside the house, glaring over his shoulder glaring as if Katara had personally offended her. She shakes her head minutely at Zuko and he seems to collapse into an acceptance of his defeat.

“Hi, Zuko!” She greets him nevertheless, hugging him tightly because she's not rude and he's still her friend (a very tense one at that, she will report that to Sokka). “What the actual fuck?” She whispers against his ear.

“I made crème brûleè.” He says, like a peace offering. ”Please don't murder her.”

“I wouldn't kill a person without just cause.”

Zuko seems relaxed by that, and Katara keeps to herself she has plenty of just cause to murder Azula after every thing she has done. Doesn't feel particularly prone to saying so either, when he smiles that grateful smile and turns to (re)introduce her to his awaiting sister.

Azula looks nonchalant and aloof as always, with her nose held so high she might be aiming to touch the stars with the tip of it. Katara notes mildly mournfully that, with her money and privilege she has fixed the nos Katara and broken só beautifully through her anger into near perfection. It is a bummer. She thought if nothing else, she would have made her nose slightly crooked.

“Hello…” She says, almost hesitant through her calculating eyes before trying a name she does not seem to have much certainty over. “Kara?”

“Katara.” She corrects, as patiently as she can manage.

Azula's face twitches dismissively.

“Close enough.” The girl has the nerve to say through a shrug, before turning around and towards the living room's couch.

Nice thoughts.

Murder.

Nice thoughts.

Murder.

Nice thoughts.

Zuko squeezes Katara's shoulders, looking for all the world just as exasperated as Katara was infuriated and murmured something about remembering the crème brûleès before turning her back to the kitchen to save their lunch from burning in the oven.

Katara pulls her phone to text the one sensible person she has left.

* * *

Mai hated her work.

She was good at it, it did pay well, could be considered mentally stimulating, she chose the major too, but she hated her co-workers, so she hated the job too, out of principle.

Work was terrible. Capitalism was awful. She wasn’t going to do anything about it, but complaining did wonders for the soul, no matter what Ty Lee said it did for her aura.

( Apparently it had gone from gray to gray-like-red and her girlfriend found that such a massive improvement she put crystals everywhere in the house.

If Ty Lee explained her once again what rose quartz were for she just might begin to hate rocks too, and not even specific rocks. Rocks in general.

The Earth in general, for producing crystals and letting esoteric people fantasize about their properties. They were _crystals._ )

It’s 4 and some to her halves in the afternoon and her work is just two hours shy of ending for the day, so she could go back to home and the stupid crystals and some alternative food Ty Lee found at the all green restaurant by the dance studio and tested she’d get for them to try. Sure, sometimes Ty Lee struck gold on her finding, but most often than not Mai kept frozen pork chops on the fridge to reheat as necessary.

She’s only mildly vexed Katara did not have lunch with her today, but mostly because that meant she had to go and have lunch with Song- who was a nice girl, all in all, but too sweet and kind and prone to making small talk an overworked and hungry Katara would not try.

Still, it was better of a company than most of the weird people that found appealing the fact a, and she quotes, ‘cute goth girl’ worked in forensic pathology. It was alright, though, the texts she sent her ranting about the conditions she was forced to endure for a plate of Zuko’s food made up for her lack of company and amused her greatly. Especially when she began to rant about no mater how many crème brûlées Zuko could, and she quotes, ‘whip out of is ass’, Azula’s body would be found in a inconspicuous woods and she counted on her expertise on how to properly dispose of a corpse.

‘Both my girlfriend and Zuko would be extremely upset with us’

‘But think of the greater good’

‘Not my thing’

‘Think of personal satisfaction then’

‘Do not sweet talk me into crime’

‘You’re really going to let me down like this?’

Which was about the time that three things happened: a) her lunch break ended, b) Mai ghosted Katara and c) Katara’s lunch break ended and she had to make a run for it.

All in all, she’s greatly amused and her spirits are high, which is very good. Good humor was essential to handle yet some more hours with dead bodies.

So, when her phone buzzed right before she put on her gloves and went back to her (actually very) clean work, she assumed it would be Katara to ask her a favor or Song after having read Mai’s text warning her that she forgot her wallet at the restaurant and she could come down to collect it whenever she was free.

“Yes?” She answers, not sparing a look at the screen of her phone, eyes fleeting over the chart with the informations for the unfortunate woman who had passed away earlier that day on room 345 and had an interesting combination of factors going for her.

“Mai?” Ukano’s voice rings from the other side.

 _Oh, no_. She tilts her head down, chin against her chest, holding back a long-suffering sigh, _What did he want now?_

Her good mood drains out of her at impressive speed, as if she was a bathtub whose plug had been pulled out and down, down the train goes the water. Mai exhales tiredly and briefly considers hanging up the phone.

“Yes, Dad?” She asks instead, giving into the role of the diligent daughter she still struggles to shrug off her own shoulders.

“Do you still talk with Ozai’s Azula?” Oh, of course he was asking about _Azula_.

How are you, daughter? How is your work, daughter? How is the girlfriend I disapprove of, daughter? Why did your mother divorce me and took my son, daughter?

“No, Dad. I haven’t spoken with her in over two years.” _Something I dearly wish I could say about you._

He groans and mumbles something, as if she’s displeased him or not given him the answer he wanted her to give him. Tough luck. He probably is sucking up to Ozai anyway, always after the Igarashi favor even if he loses his whole family in the process.

Maybe he and Ozai deserved each other.

“What about his son?” Ukano tries again, almost bargaining for information. “Your childhood boyfriend?”

“Zuko was not my childhood boyfriend, Dad.” Mai answers, finally letting out just how annoyed she was with him, as per usual with any interaction they had.

“Zuko, that was it.” He replies, absentmindely and completely ignoring her, but what’s new? “Does he still have the same number?”

“Yes.” She says, exasperated, because this is a waste of her precious time and she could be doing so much more with these five minutes she’s pouring onto Ukano and never getting back. “Why do you even want to know that?” She asks in a groan, before realization strikes her like a slap to the cheek and her whole body tenses.

Always sucking up for Ozai’s favor… Azula who had turned off her phone yesterday after getting into Zuko's car. Azula who had trashed her room and ran away from home. Azula who was at Zuko’s place.

Zuko who hadn't spoken with his dad since he survived the last attempt on his life.

Her eyes widen at the phone, her fingers leave her temples, hands placed in either side as if she could placate her father’s poor life decisions through the phone.

“Dad—”

“Thank you, darling, I will send him the number. Goodbye.”

The phone call cuts off.

Mai stays frozen for only a moment before she starts typing with a panicked hurry.


End file.
